Left Behind
by Delas
Summary: AU. The war has never ended for Sonic. Even when they're all dead, he still can't seem to make it home. He's left to wander, looking for the path back to something he lost long ago.


**Left Behind**

By Delas

Sonic trudged up the narrow stone steps, one foot after the other in a slow monotonous march to the top of the green hill. He didn't even glace up as he went forward, he just stared at his feet, a strange reluctance etched across his face. He watched the violets that bordered the steps stream past his eyes. He didn't want to go up that hill. He'd seen what was up there enough times to last him his whole life, however longer that might be. But year after year he found himself marching up the same stone steps, to the same stone graves that awaited him at the top of the hill. Shadow followed silently behind him. He never talked when he came. For the longest time Shadow _never_ talked. He figured Shadow had his reasons. Everyone does. You wouldn't talk much either if you went through what we did.

They reached the top of the hill now. A breeze picked up, bringing with it the sweet smell of the ocean that lay just on the other side of the hill. It was sunset, and the sky was breathtakingly beautiful. Hues of every color imaginable were splashed across the horizon. A few wisps of clouds hung onto the sun like a strange white crown. Sonic sighed wistfully. Such a beautiful day. He stared down at the small cluster of graves that resided on that little hill. They were all here. Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Sally, Rouge, Maria, what little they could find of Metal, numerous others without name, ... and even Robotnik was there. It seemed fitting that he should be, though Sonic couldn't honestly say why. Collectively, they had all caused each other pain. Maybe it was a tribute. A tribute to what Sally had prized so much: freedom. A tribute to the hope that maybe one day they could be free of the hate that had bound them in life. Sonic smiled to himself. He was sure that only Sally would understand such… poetic justice. The smiled died however, as their deaths came back to him. It was the same every year. He wondered why he even bothered anymore. He didn't need these graves to remember. He carried the memories with him, always.

He had never imagined that Tails would be the first one to fall. Never even in his imagination was that scenario possible. He was too young, to innocent, to full of promise, all the clichés that people decide should determine your fate. The real world never works like that. There had always been a change that Tails would go before him, or any of the others. Fate had a way of screwing him over, these last years.

If there was a beginning to the real war between Robotnik and Sonic, the death of Tails would be considered it. It was the first time Sonic truly was willing to go to any length for revenge. _Any_ length, and perhaps that made him a little colder and a little harder. In any case, their battles before had been child's play. Now, no more injuries – every attack was death. No more grab and runs – every attack was a battle. Building destroyed, people dying, broken. A war in the truest sense. Because that one day, he lost the race.

_Tails half-turned when he heard Sonic shout his name, but didn't stop running._

_"Tails, what are you doing!" Sonic shouted after him. He could catch Tails if he wanted to. He ran for all he was worth at the thought of losing him, and planted himself in the way of Tails and his plane._

_"I'm the only one who can stop this. You know that, I know that, Robotnik knows that. I'm the only one that can fly." Tails said. It wasn't shouted, wasn't whispered. A simple statement, monotone. It was a truth._

_Sonic shook his head. "Let me go instead. I can fly it."_

_Here, Tails mouth twisted in a grin. "You? Fly? Sonic, if anyone was born to keep his feet on the ground, it was you. I'll go, because I was meant to go. Get out of my way."_

_Tails tried to push past the hedgehog, but Sonic laid a hand on his shoulder and refused to let him past. "You can't do this."_

_Tails' eyes flashed. "And why not? What is the world worth, Sonic? What is this entire city worth? Our friendship? My life? Your life? What are you willing to trade for it? You can't pick and choose when to be a hero. You can't let everyone die because it would take something important away from you. I don't want that. And I can't let you. Let me by."_

_Sonic locked eyes with Tails, staring into those child's eyes, and he wanted to scream with frustration. He wanted to say the whole world wasn't worth Tails' life, that he would kill everyone just to keep the fox by his side. But there was a truth in those eyes that could not be denied. The battle was in the sky, and Tails was born to be there._

_The hand fell from the shoulder. Tails looked away first, and moved around Sonic to his plane. He touched the cold metal, as if to reassure himself of something, before climbing inside. Sonic didn't know if he had the heart to turn around. He didn't know if he could look at him one last time._

_"Sonic."_

_His body turned, whether he wanted to or not._

_Tails smiled at him. "I was born to be there. I'd be dead otherwise. Keep your feet on the ground, and keep running. Maybe you'll catch me someday. Maybe we'll me at the finish line together. I could never catch you, but for once I'd like to see how it ends."_

_The plane started, and after a moment it flew off. Sonic stared after it, his hands clenched in fists so hard that the nails broke skin and little drops of blood slid down his fingers. He stared down at his feet, and wanted to scream._

Sonic stared at the little tombstone. It was old and tattered, discolored by the wind and the rain from the ocean. That didn't really matter - it was plain stone, except for that pair of wings at the top, and the inscription. He read it, his lips moving slightly as he breathed the words. Even if they disappeared to the sands of time, his lips would remember. He breathed them a thousand times in the dark just before he slept.

He still remembered the last thing Tails had said to him. 'I want to see how it ends.' he had told him. No 'goodbye', no 'it's been fun', no 'don't worry, I'll be back', no nothing. Just a hopeful response from someone who shouldn't have had to make that choice in the first place. Sonic should never have let him go. The image of Tails' twisted grin was still ingrained in his mind. For the longest time, he was it wherever he went. He saw it on his friend's faces, he saw it on TV, on posters and in magazines. He saw it on strangers as he passed them in the streets. He saw it once in the mirror, and several faded scars crisscrossed his knuckles where he had pounded them in the glass.

Amy was the next, right when the twisted grin's impact began to fade with time. She never really had the abilities or attributes of the others. She tried though, she tried with every fiber of her being, if that counts for anything. But in the end, it wasn't enough. She just couldn't keep up, no matter how much Sonic tried to keep his pace matched with hers. He just couldn't slow down.

They never found her body. It was lost in the explosion that also took her life.

_"Amy, where are you going with that?" Sonic demanded, finding him mouth dry and his breath coming fast._

_Her whole stance shifted in anger, her arms wrapped tighter against the metal cylinder she carried. "Where do you think I'm taking it? I'm taking it inside, and I'm taking it to where it needs to be."_

_She turned, and began running again. It was effortless to catch her, and he kept his grip firm on her arm. "You can't. You're not fast enough."_

_"I'm never fast enough, I'm never strong enough, I'm never smart enough! I was never good enough for you, was I? Everything I could do, _**she**_ could do better. Well this time I'm finishing what I started, and I'm going to be strong. I'm going to be fast. And there's nothing you can do about it."_

_With a vicious yank he didn't know she was capable of, she was free. Her legs pumped and she was racing away. Sonic caught her again, this time his hands grabbing both of her arms, and his body blocking her way._

_"You're going to get yourself killed! Don't you understand that?" Sonic shouted. "This isn't some stupid game to win me over! You're going to die!"_

_Amy's expression softened. "Yes Sonic, I'm going to die. Just like Tails. People die Sonic. We die because we aren't good enough. Tails wasn't good enough to fight his way both there and back. He only had strength for one. And I'm going to die because I wasn't good enough for you. You can only love one, and that isn't me. So let me go."_

**_Tails' eyes were fierce. "Let me by."_**

_Sonic looked down at his feet, gritting his teeth. With an effort, he slowly released his grip on one of her arms._

_"Let me be good enough for you."_

_"What," Sonic whispered, "… good is that going to be when you wont be here? What am I going to do?"_

_Amy smiled, and when Sonic looked up he was struck by how beautiful she was. The sun was at an angle where it caught her hair and lit it, so tiny strands of a brilliant pink wavered around her face, which was shadowed and perfect. Her eyes were bright against her white skin, like a jewel on porcelain. Her lips were red, and he stared at them as they mouthed his name. A warm hand reached forward and rested on his chest._

_"You're going to run into someone else's arms." She said lightly, leaned forward, and pressed her lips against his. Sonic's arms fell to his sides, and his eyes closed. As quickly as it came, the warm against his mouth was gone, and when he got the strength to open his eyes, she was gone._

Sonic found some measure of comfort in the fact that she had died taking Robotnik's headquarters with her. She was never one to go down without a fight. And she had loved him until her dying day. He just regretted that fact that he never gave her love in return.

It destroyed him, sometimes. That image of Amy standing with the light of the sun behind her, lit up like some radiant goddess, pink strands of fire shifting in the breeze. It came to him in his dreams, whenever he closed his eyes or even blinked, and on her face she wore Tails' twisted grin, and it always hit him like a blow to the gut.

He wasn't a good judge of how much time passed after the Tails. Days blurred into each other, a week somehow became a month, and time passed by without his notice or care. Sonic was guiltily relieved that he didn't' care too much.

The next was Rouge, who died by Knuckles' hands. Rouge was someone he could mourn and get over. Rouge would not stay with him – she was never that important. Still, she somehow left her demons for Sonic, just like the three before her.

It was one final battle in their endless struggle over the Master Emerald. Rouge must have known what she was getting into, but she never quit. She just carried on with the grim determination towards a goal only her and Knuckles could ever understand. No matter how beaten and bruised they got and no matter how much it destroyed them, they still fought with a ferocity and single-mindedness that transcended the simple conflict of a thief trying to get a jewel. Sonic suspected, of course, but it was never his place.

Sonic never really talked with Rogue. He didn't know her, and didn't know the details of her death. The demon she left was the look in Knuckle's eyes as he spoke of it once, briefly. They had a conversation to prepare for the final battle against Robotnik, and Sonic had mentioned Rouge. A logical assumption, to think Knuckles would have seen the bat, but he found himself wondering if perhaps he should have just let things lie. He never needed to know.

_Knuckles shook his head, his red dreadlocks brushing his shoulders. "The Chaotix will be sufficient for the task. They have their own knowledge of Robotnik – they have fought him before."_

_"Still, I was thinking that Rogue would be a great help. She was close to Robotnik and she might be able to tell us some things that someone--"_

_"No." Knuckles said flatly. His tone cut right over Sonic's words._

_Sonic was taken aback. "Look, Red, I know you two don't see eye to eye sometimes, but we need everyone we can get. We can't just pick and choose with such finality -- everyone is a possible ally."_

_"She can't help."_

_"Why not?"__ Sonic demanded. He found himself growing angry. He did that a lot more than he used to, but whenever Robotnik was concerned, Sonic would go to any lengths, and he got irritated when other people were hesitant to do so._

_"She's dead." Knuckles stated. A soft admission, said with starling factuality. The way he said it, so flatly and without emotion, like he was stating some mundane fact of no consequence, sent chills down Sonic's back._

_After a moment of awkward silence, Sonic repeated "Dead? What… how? When?"_

_"I killed her." The echidna said simply. His eyes finally looked over with Sonic, and Sonic saw something there that he couldn't put in words. Sorrow, anger, frustration, regret. Deep hatred, loathing. Sonic was forced to glance away. He swallowed, hard._

_"I killed her." Knuckles repeated, a bit more forcefully. "She wanted something from me that I couldn't give her. So she tried to take it. I stopped her, but she kept coming. So I stopped her permanently." _

_The way he said it was off. His sentence structure, his body language, the way his lips moved – they all screamed something that Sonic didn't identify with Knuckles often. Sheer lethality._

_Sonic couldn't believe the coldness of those words. What he saw in the echidna's eyes completely contradicted what he heard. He was incredulous – he never saw so deeply into this side of Knuckles. "How could you?" he asked harshly._

_Knuckles looked away. "It was easy. I was better, I was stronger, I was faster."_

**_Amy's entire stance screamed anger. "I'm never strong enough, I'm never fast enough, I'm never smart enough!"_**

_The echidna stood and began to walk away. The sunlight rippled over his fur as he moved. It reminded him off…_

_"Wait!" Sonic said. Knuckles paused, and looked back over his shoulder._

_He spoke softly before Sonic could say anything. "She died because she desired what couldn't be hers. She wanted me and she wanted what I guarded. I cannot be two people at once. I cannot accept one thing and deny another. She died because…"_

_Knuckles stopped, his eyes boring into Sonic's, emerald to sapphire, cold and dead._

_"… because that's who she was. It's who she was born as. She couldn't accept one and deny another either. She couldn't have me and not the Emerald, nor the Emerald and not me. We cannot exist with the same shortcoming. I was just born better, so I was able to kill her. That's just the truth of it."_

_Knuckles ran his hand through his dreadlocks, which fluttered and caught in the wind. After what felt like eternity as Sonic read deep into the depths of Knuckle's eyes, his red form was lifted into the air, and Sonic lost the connection in the glare of the sun. _

Often, on nights when he sat alone on some grassy hill without name, he would reflect back on those two together, and contemplate the tragedy that they never had a chance. They never had each other, the way Sonic had Sally.

Sally fell in the final battle against Robotnik. Sonic had not seen her fall, but those who survived around her assured him that she died fighting. Just like Tails, Amy, Rouge, just like everyone before her. That day ended in victory and everything that Sally had devoted her life to succeeded. She could rest in peace. Sonic never could, not anymore. Whatever grand design death was having fun with kept taking bits and pieces of the hedgehog until Sally was the only piece still hanging there. Then that part of him was punched out, leaving only that cold shell with Shadow at his side, like some kind of ironic cosmic joke.

He realized he needed to know how Sally died. He needed the truth of her death. If Knuckles could carry the weight of Rogue, then Sally's final moments should rest on his shoulders.

_Sonic closed his eyes, not caring what they thought of him. "Tell __me.__" He ordered them quietly._

_Among them, they exchanged uneasy glances. "Dude, I don't think…"_

_His breath hissed through clenched teeth. "Tell me, I won't ask you again." He knew the answer, really. He could feel it in his bones, under his skin, in his gut. He fairly tingled with the knowledge of it. She was dead and gone. He knew that the moment he lost sight of her. He had found the others before the end. Why not her?_

_"She died." Vector whispered. His eyesturned downcast. They all avoided his gaze._

_"Tell me how." Sonic demanded. He wanted a deeper truth. He wanted to know. He knew with Tails, he knew with Amy. This one was the most important – with this one, he had to know._

_He wanted his last demon._

_"She screamed."_

_Sonic threw Vector a desperate look, one that appeared of its own volition. Vector plowed on, his voice coming faster and faster with every word. No one could stop it now. Sonic had come to be wary of the truth. He had come to hate it and treasure it. He whispered it to himself over and over, repeated the mantra of 'I was born to keep my feet on the ground', 'I cannot love two people', 'She was born to die'. He didn't think he could whisper into the night 'At the end, she screamed.'_

_"I didn't expect it at first. She had never screamed in all these years, not that I ever saw. I never even saw her cry, except over you. I didn't even recognize it at first. I didn't understand that it was coming from her. I'd never heard her scream, how could I know? Had I known, I would have gone to her…"_

_Vector swallowed, his shining eyes roving everywhere but near Sonic. "She screamed. She was kneeling there, all bloody and filthy, that gun in her hand. Of course it was Robotnik before her, who else would it have been? I'd never heard anyone scream with that kind of hatred before, it couldn't have been anyone else. I can still here those loud bangs from the gun when she fired it over and over. I didn't know a gun had that many bullets."_

_Sonic wanted to put his hand over his ears, but his arms hung limply at his sides. _

_"She- she told me that she wanted to find him. She wanted to go alone to hunt him down. She had that look in her eye, and I didn't hold her back. It wasn't my place, that's what her eyes said. It was her life to be in that moment, they said. She was born to do it."_

**_All Sonic could stare at was how Knuckles' eyes were so cold and dead when he spoke. "She died… because that's who she was. It's who she was born as."_**

_"I tried to follow her, but I lost her in all of it." Vector's hand gestured half-heartedly to the scattered heaps of blackened and twisted wreckage around them. "I only saw her right before the… before the end. She was kneeling there, screaming, pulling that trigger over and over even though the clip was empty. I remember watching, and the gun fell out of her hand, but she kept her hand stretched out in front of her, and it looked like she thought he could kill him if she reached hard enough."_

_Vector trailed off, his voice had been trembling at the end. Sonic waited for him to start speaking again. After the Chaotix's silence, Sonic managed to force out an "And?"_

_Vector finally looked up, meeting his gaze helplessly. "There was an explosion, and I lost the two of them in it. They were both dead by the time anyone got near."_

_The crocodile tapped the middle of his chest twice. "Robotnik had two bullet holes, right here. Sally killed him."_

_That was enough. He didn't need to hear anymore. He wondered if his eyes looked as dead as he felt _

**_All Sonic could stare at was how Knuckles' eyes were so cold and dead_**

_because__ he didn't think he could stand the hollow feeling in his chest. He had to leave. He didn't want anyone to see him, to see the shell he felt like he was becoming. Wordlessly, his cobalt form turned and began walking slowly away. He felt so numb, like his feet were lead bars and his arms were slowly being pulled to the ground. He wanted to collapse on the ground and lay there and let the earth swallow him into its depths._

He reflected that he had four demons then. He had the form of Amy, smiling Tails' final twisted grin that screamed of inadequacy. And now her form stood there with Knuckles' red lethality and bored into him with sapphire eyes, eyes that were filled with Sally's intense hatred, and one outstretched hand reached toward him.

He was forced to walk through life with that shadow demon always behind him, behind his eyelids when he slept, behind every thought.

Life, it seemed, was never kind to him. Those last years, the… Good Times, when they had all smiled and laughed together, never lasted. It was such a cliché, and he hated it for being that way. They had fought Robotnik, they had loved each other, they had been friends, they had adventures. Then Tails died, the Amy, and the world turned serious. Sonic could now only think of those years as bitter. They were bitter, because they were so short and he could never forget them. Was he better off without them? Was the time before the deaths worth anything?

He didn't know.

He wondered if he was the only one who felt this way. After the final battle, after so many had fallen… no one was left. The only people there when he turned around were Knuckles and Shadow.

And so he asked Knuckles.

Sonic and Knuckles were old friends, and as childish as it sometimes seemed, Sonic wondered perhaps, if he searched the Floating Island, maybe he'd find an old, tattered cowboy hat worn with time. It seemed so many lifetimes and deaths ago that Knuckles had worn that hat, and Sonic had looked into the dying, flickering eyes of Metal. Every time he came to this hill, he invariably thought of the hat. He had yet to go search for it, and somehow he doubted he ever would. That's just the way things were. He'd reflect on it, always, but he could never gain the courage to put one foot in front of the other. He was such a coward.

_Knuckles tilted his head to the side. "You know, Blue... you can be really childish sometimes."_

_Sonic narrowed his eyes in anger. "Childish? The hell you talking about?"_

_The echinda sat there, his arms around his knees, his spines gently swaying in the breeze. He looked the picture of some dark, lethal creature, his eyes full of an emotion Sonic would never understand._

_"Did you really think... you could save them all?"_

_Sonic didn't really think before he acted. He was on his feet in an instant, and he drove his fist in Knuckles face, and watched dispassionatly as he went sprawling on the ground. That infuriating look in his eye never vanished._

_A white glove slowly reached up to touch the torn lip, pulling away red. Knuckles stared at it for a moment, his eyes focused intensly on the stained fabric. There was no anger, no hatred. Just resignation._

_"Did you really, Sonic?" Knuckles whispered, almost sadly, if he was still capable of such an emotion._

_"SHUT UP!" Sonic screamed. He leaped forward again, and Knuckles didn't even bother to fight back. He let Sonic lash out with his fists, he let the kicks connect with his stomach. He listened to Sonic rave at him, scream in his face._

_"You-" a kick to the side._

_"Fucking-" another, and another._

_"Bastard-" something snaped in his chest._

_"How can you just sit there-" a fist whipped his head back_

_"And fucking _say_ that-" over and over._

_Sonic was completely gone. He had never felt so angry and lost. There was a huge gaping hole in his chest, a void that he tried to fill, a void he had tried to replace with other people. Nothing he ever did accomplished anything. Every night he went home to an empty house, an empty heart. All those years of fighting, all those comrades, and _he _had been left standing in the rubble. His fists lashed out with all his pain and anger, and he reaped what he sowed._

_"I hate you." he half panted, half sobbed._

_Knuckles lay there, and Sonic would never recognise until years later how dead the echidna's eyes had been. He was so caught up in his misery, in the emptyness he felt, that he never stopped hating. Everything else hurt to much, except the hate. It was easy to hate somebody. Especially if there was no reason for it._

_He left Knuckles there, red blood pooling in the grass. He ran as fast as he could from the Floating Island. That's what he was best at, after all - running. He had nothing left except that._

Had he really... thought he could save them all?

To hear someone ask that... the question echoed inside him, refracted around inside his brain, screaming the mantra over and over "Could you really save them all?"

He never saw Knuckles again. When he worked up the courage to return, the echina was nowhere to be found. The Master Emerald was still in it's place. Knuckles would never leave it, Sonic knew. After a few years, he began to believe that perhaps Knuckles had thrown himself into the ocean.

Sonic glanced at the Floating Island in the distance. The waves crashed up against the rocks and Sonic closed his eyes, listening to the thunder as the water heaved against the cliff. A deep sigh escaped his lips.Another year, another trip. Another truth he could never run from.

_He was the last. He outlived them all._

_-_

_-_

_-_

_-_

Anyways, hope you enjoyed. "To be continued".


End file.
